“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” Emma by Jane Austen

She told me she wasn’t in love with anyone but I just smiled because I knew better. The woman who told me she would never be the first to say I love you wasn’t going to risk getting hurt without knowing that we had a real shot this time. It was a big part of why she had cut off contact and was unwilling to see me in person.

Distance made it easier to pretend that what once was hadn’t been as special or as important. Time made it easier to reassure herself that the list of reasons why we couldn’t be made sense. Each passing day without me made it easier to believe that life apart wouldn’t be as difficult as we had once thought.

Once she had made me promise to not let go if things fell apart between us. She told me that if they did she would be a bitch and would fight to push me away but that I should ignore what she said.

I told her that I was concerned about that. I said it was like the fantasy of having me take her when she didn’t want to be taken. The idea of being dominated was exhilarating to her and intriguing to me. It held a certain interest but also a certain amount of fear.

When you blur those lines you need to make sure there is an extraordinary amount of trust and a very clear understanding of how you BOTH want to play it out. I remember wrestling with her and how she goaded me to be rougher.

I remember her words and the look in her eyes. I remember that Cheshire Cat grin when she told me that her body was meant to birth babies and that if I couldn’t go harder there might be a problem. I wrapped my fingers in her hair and tugged. She rolled her eyes at me.

I pushed on the back of her head and she rolled her eyes again.

You all do that. Every one of you. Trust me, I know from my experience and my friends.”
That got the response she wanted. It is hard not to remember the smile and look of satisfaction.

But that was then and this is now.

The question of whether she meant what she said and whether the words retained their power after so much time has passed hung in the air. There is what was and what is.

Each of them followed by what could be, what should be and what would be.

There is a blend of science and philosophy that move and shape the world as we know it. Certain things are easily categorized as being one or the other. Evolution, the Earth rotating around the sun, photosynthesis and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity are easily understood because science, reason, logic and rational thought can be applied to them.

But when it comes to people you cannot use the same tools to measure and determine what is meant or not meant to be. Sure there are some guidelines that can be applied to a person’s physical health and well being. You can use things like genetics, cholesterol levels, age, height and weight to offer a suggestion of how long they might live.

If you are an experienced medical professional and have a certain amount of data you might even be able to speak with more accuracy as to how long a person might live, but even that is a best guess.

That is because people fool people. Sometimes no matter what you think you know you find that you don’t. The difficulty with this truth that people like to use it to prove that their position is the most accurate.

Some of the devout like to use the scientific uncertainties to prove their belief in the roles of a higher power in the world. Undoubtedly many of them dislike the attempt of the rational side to use the religious uncertainties to prove their belief of a lack of a higher power in the world.

What it proves to me is that people like to be right and that our understanding of logic can be adjusted to support whatever position we want to stand with.

I see things a bit differently from those who insist on making camp on one side or the other. I see potential for an intersection between thought, belief and philosophy. A four way crossing that allows for entrance into both camps.

Some have accused me of straddling the fence and said that this cannot be. They can’t accept the idea that I am not fully committed to here or there. I roll my eyes at this. It reminds me of the Sneetches that Dr. Seuss wrote about.

What I know is I have experienced things that make me believe there is magic in the night and it wasn’t just because Ann’s legs were wrapped around me. Some of the most powerful moments she and I experienced had nothing to do with the physical. Without question those moments are what led us to give each ourselves to each other and engage in moments of intimacy that wreaked havoc upon the future.

Why did they wreak havoc upon the future?

The answer is simple. When you have had those experiences with someone and lose that person you find yourself searching for a way to create them again. But they cannot be created with just anyone.

Science will tell you that in a world filled with billions there has to be more than one person who you can find build that secret sanctuary with. Philosophy will tell you that it must be so as well.

But sometimes it doesn’t matter if you sever the physical relationship because the spiritual doesn’t end. For reasons that are often inexplicable it continues and the connection that was created keeps sending out constant and consistent reminders that it is there.

The image I have is of a telephone line that stretches between the two people. It is as long or as short as it needs to be to reach from one to the other. That maintains the connection. Sometimes the signal is so weak you don’t notice it but every now and then a burst comes through and you are forced to recognize that it is still there.

I can’t tell you whether this is a good or bad thing. That is subjective and something that can only be ascertained based upon the person and parties involved. What I do know is that long ago I decided to see how it all played out.

It took a while to reach this place but when I did I understood that what was happening wasn’t based upon rational thought. Logic, at least as I understood it checked out. It went for a walk or took a vacation and all I was left with was this sense of something that I couldn’t quite taste, touch or feel but couldn’t ignore either.

So I shrugged my shoulders and said “let it happen.” I didn’t know what that meant but was confident that I would find out. Time passed, things happened and then one day I was clearing out a drawer when I came across part of a Tarot card reading that Ann and I had done together for fun.

Here is a transcription of the card and the written definition we were given:

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that’s actually more apt than “Lovers.” Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can’t understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

When I saw this I didn’t spend time thinking about the day we got it or what happened. I smiled because it was like a light bulb clicked on inside my head. Let it happen made more sense to me than it had and I smiled again.

Her parents had told her she was a happy baby. That baby who giggled often and smiled so freely grew up to be a woman who radiated happiness. It was part of why people liked spending time with her, she was just happy.

But that didn’t mean she hadn’t experienced some hard moments. We all do. We all go through our challenges and heartbreaks.

Those experiences help to define us and make us into the people we become.

Coffee. It was supposed to be nothing more than a cup of coffee. It was innocent.

She hadn’t talked to or seen him in years and was curious to find out whether time had been good to him. But that was it. Any feelings she had for him were long since gone so she had no concerns about it.

And even if she had it wasn’t going to be a problem. They were going to meet in a public place. Besides, middle aged men weren’t interested in middle aged women. They wanted young girls who hadn’t given birth and weren’t called mom by tiny people.

At least that was what she had thought.

She had forgotten how easy it was to speak with him. Their conversations had always been effortless and this had been no different.

He listened to her and asked questions. Three hours passed but it felt like fifteen minutes. When he excused himself to go the restroom she caught herself checking him out and let herself remember.

He surprised her by turning around to look at her. They made eye contact and she tried not to blush. Did he know she was watching him. Had he noticed she kept staring at his hands. Did he remember that she had a thing for them?

It was a relief when he asked her if she wanted to take a walk. The sky was blue and the sun felt good on their backs.

A half mile later they wandered through a park and headed towards the lake in the center of it stopping at the edge of the water.

She felt his hands find her hips and her body stiffened. This wasn’t supposed to be happening, but she didn’t pull away.

He pressed up against her and she felt his breath against her neck.

When he heard her say “we can’t” he smiled because he knew that meant “she would” and what was once forbidden would be his again.

There are no coincidences because what you see, hear and do are part of something greater than us. It is tied into something larger that can be described as both mystical and magical.

Don’t ask me to explain this because I can’t tell you how or why. All I can say is that I know because I have experienced it. I have seen it. I have lived it. I have been there and that is all the proof that I can provide.

It won’t be enough for some of you. It won’t be the kind of thing that you can accept because you can’t buy, touch or taste it. Actually that is not true, you can but only if you open your mind and let your soul seek its match.

I know this because for the longest time I didn’t do it. I spent years not buying into it or believing that it could be real. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to because I did. I desperately wanted to believe that this thing was something tangible. Because I just knew that if I could feel it in my hands and see it with my eyes it would prove that there was something to this dream I had once lived.

You see I fell in love with a girl and I loved her fiercely. I loved her madly. I loved her passionately. I loved her in every way that the poets wrote of, spoke of and dreamed of.

I loved her with all of my heart and all of my soul. I loved her desperately and somewhere in that madness I lost her.

Some of you can’t feel what I am saying. These words have no meaning to you. They are figments of imagination that you can’t feel, see or taste. So they never grab you. Your heart, your eyes and your mind are closed to them.

I can’t fault or blame you because I used to be like you. I used to look at this sort of writing and roll my eyes because I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen. I hadn’t felt it.

But that was long ago. That was in the time before I became who I am now. That was before I understood that love is a drug that can make you soar to the highest heights and or drop your ass into a pit so dark and dank you can’t remember what it felt like to see sunshine.

Some of you are nodding your head. You don’t even realize that you are doing it. You aren’t even aware that your pulse has quickened and you can’t see anything other than these words and even those are growing faint.

That is because we are running with the moon you and I. We are partners on a journey and you want to know more about my story because you hope that maybe it holds some sort of key insight to your story.

You want to know about the girl I loved and what happened to her. You want to know if there is hope for us because if there is hope for us there might be some for you.

The thing that is ever so interesting about this is that I haven’t given you much in the way of detail. You haven’t heard about how we met in the most unusual way or how crazy it all was. You don’t know how it is we fell in love. You wonder if I am exaggerating or maybe you don’t.

Maybe you know what it is like to have that kind of passion where you can’t stand not having that person in your life because there is a gaping void that aches and burns without respite. Maybe you too were surprised to discover that the kind of crazy love you experienced the first time you ever fell in love could come back. Maybe you were shocked by the passion and overwhelmed by the loss of the friendship that you had.

Because that friendship threw you for a loop. It wasn’t just about love or lust. You liked them as a person. They filled the gaps and made you believe that you could be more than you were. They made you believe that all that hokey stuff you read in cheap paperbacks or saw on television might be based in reality. You understood that you could be naked in every possible way with them and be confident that they would caress your soul and cradle your heart.

It doesn’t have to be a dream. You don’t have to keep running with the moon. You don’t have to feel that enormous sense of loss or wonder whether you can ever love and be loved like that again because if it happened once it can happen again.

There are no coincidences. You can live your dream. You can find a way back. All you need to do is let go, submit to the reality of the possibility and accept that there will be opportunity.

It is not poetry or fiction. It is reality. It can’t happen on its own but if you ask and if you believe you will find the answer. You don’t need the old gypsy woman to sell you Love Potion number 9.

There was a time not so long ago when flying was an adventure and not a task. It was a time when the world seemed less complicated and the opportunities greater than now.

Maybe that is because when you are younger and have fewer responsibilities you set limits based upon how your actions might impact others. You go out and “do” without the same concerns because what, who and how you “do” only impacts you.

As you walk down the path you set ahead you make choices about how you choose to handle those responsibilities and determine what to accept and when to make an exception.

What you can’t see when you are younger is that sometimes life experience is what makes it possible for the dreams of your youth to intersect with the reality of the future.

*****

We were seated near the back of the plane on a flight back to the states from overseas. Ann had the window seat on the flight out so I had it on our return. We held hands on take off and stared out the window and watched as the land grew distant and the clouds drew closer.

Lost in our own thoughts about the trip we sat in silence and did our best to get comfortable. We followed our usual plan to stay awake for the first food service. The idea was that shortly thereafter the cabin would grow quiet and it would make it easier to sleep.

Ann ordered a Coke and I got a Ginger Ale. We made the usual comments to each other about how water would do a better job of keeping us hydrated and laughed. It was part of an old joke tied into a lecture an older couple had given us on the best way to travel. The two of them had spent forty minutes jawing at us about how their tips would make us less likely to fight and more likely to have a good time.

That is part of the beauty of flying. There is a moment where you look outside and feel weightless and another when you realize that you are trapped in a flying tin can with people you don’t want to talk to or spend time with.

Midway through their lecture Ann said she was tired and put her head down on my shoulder to go to sleep. Just before she closed her eyes she flashed a smile at me and stifled a giggle.

Our teachers didn’t miss a beat, they told her to sleep well and kept jabbering at me about all of the flights they had been on.

And because my girl has a great sense of humor she chose not to put her head on my shoulder to go to sleep. No, she raised the armrest and put her head in my lap. One hand fell on my thigh and god only knows where the other one went to.

Mr. and Mrs. Oblivious kept talking and underneath that blue airplane blanket Ann’s hand kept moving lazily but never quite to where I obviously wanted it to be.

I will never forget how at one point the Oblivious twins both told me that I had to stop squirming because “all that moving around will make it impossible for her to sleep.”

Eventually they stopped talking and a good deal later on Ann made up for all that teasing. Come to think about it that is probably why thinking about those people makes me smile, but I am just guessing.